Past Times: Patton, great World War II leader, dies after accident

11:14 PM,
Dec. 21, 2013

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Written by

John Andrew Prime

The sad news that greeted readers this day in 1945 made for a bitter Christmas: The death of one of the great Allied generals of World War II, if not of all time, George S. Patton Jr.

The dashing, controversial cavalry leader, whose theories of and contributions to modern mobile warfare are still studied and debated to this day, died of complications of pneumonia 12 days after an auto accident in which he broke his neck.

Readers today can see the stories of that day, as well as retrospective photo pages The Times ran, in high-definition scans through links to the left. ...